


Sunset

by athena_crikey



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bike crash, Friendship, Hospital, M/M, Too Much Blood, Winter, concussion, h/c, more than friendship? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: “Kageyama?”“Yeah?”Hinata’s voice is just a whisper, barely audible even in the silent forest. “Why’s it so cold?”
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 10
Kudos: 418





	Sunset

It’s the end of December. School is on winter break, which just means they practice each day from before sunrise to long after sunset, the short days affording hardly any light. There’s frost on the trees and ice on the puddles when they arrive in the morning and when they leave at night. 

Tonight practice finishes at a decent time for once. Kageyama’s at home by 8:30, eating a late snack and reading a volleyball magazine leant to him by Suga-san. It’s mostly packed with vain, self-promoting interviews, but there are a few nuggets on technique and strategy. 

He’s just considering going downstairs for a cup of tea when he hears the phone ring. He ignores it, turning a page. Until there’s a quiet knock at his door and his mother comes in. 

“Tobio, it’s Hinata-san.”

Kageyama frowns but gets up. He’s met Hinata’s mother a few times; she’s kind with a softer energy than her son, but the same determination. “Hello, Hinata-san?”

“Kageyama-kun, is Shouyou there?”

Kageyama’s frown deepens. “No.” He glances at the clock. It’s 9:00. “We locked up the gym an hour ago. He’s probably just taking the roads slow.” 

Snow had been falling when they broke up for the evening, and the icy temperature meant that the previous night’s snowfall was likely now ice on the roads. A 30 minute bike-ride over mountain roads could easily be extended by that kind of weather. But now Kageyama feels a roiling uncertainty in his gut. “Let me call the other guys and make sure he didn’t dawdle anywhere,” he says. _Like the idiot he is_ , he finishes in the privacy of his thoughts. 

“Thank you.” She sounds so grateful – too grateful. She’s badly worried. Kageyama looks outside and sees the snow falling; outside in the light streaming from his window, it’s tinted gold. It looks beautiful, innocent. But to a cyclist…

Kageyama hangs up and starts making calls.

  
***

It takes five minutes to establish that Hinata hasn’t stopped off for a chat or a snack with any of the other guys. By that time he’s already in the front hall, pulling on his coat.

“You know I don’t like driving in the snow,” frets his mother, pulling on her boots. 

“We’ll go slow,” he says. Slow, like Hinata surely didn’t. They hurry out of the house and into the car, him in the passenger seat to give directions while his mother starts the engine; it coughs once in the cold, then turns over. 

There are hardly any vehicles on the street – many people share his mother’s aversion to driving in the snow, and it’s getting late. They turn out of town and up onto the roads leading across the mountains to Hinata’s town, a ten minute drive in good weather. 

The driving lane is slushy with brown snow that slowly fades to pristine, untouched white as it nears the guardrails. Their side of the road – the side Hinata has to ride going home – is the one overlooking the steep downward slope of the mountain. His mother grips the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles are white; every now and then the car skids slightly and she stiffens sharply. 

Kageyama doesn’t have time to be afraid for her – for them. He’s too distracted by thoughts of what might have happened to Hinata. In the past nine months they’ve gone from enemies to allies to partners to … Kageyama doesn’t know what they are now. On the court they’re like two sides of the same coin, can read each other’s thoughts and predict each other’s actions. Can live entirely in the other’s head and feel not just welcome but comfortable there. They’re no longer an ogre with his iron club; if anything they’re Castor and Pollux, twin demi-gods who bring victory to their team. 

"Tobio, I,” begins his mother, as they start a steep incline downwards. Just as Kageyama spots the skidding line in the white snow, just a little shallower than the snow around it.

It ends in a broken bicycle huddled against the guardrail. 

“There!” The single word echoes like a shot in the car. His mother slams the brakes and they skid, then she backs off and lets them coast to a slower halt. The instant they stop, Kageyama has the door open. 

“Tobio!” shouts his mother; he’s not listening.

On the other side of the guardrail is a steep slope covered in snow leading immediately into thick trees. Not a cliff, thank the gods, but a sharp drop all the same. If there were any sign of Hinata’s fall – if he did fall – it’s been covered in the blanket of snow that’s fallen in the past hour. 

Kageyama hops the guardrail and, in his jeans and sneakers, slips and slides down the slope towards the tree line. “Hinata! _Hinata!_ Oi!” 

It’s dark here; he’s already out of the line of the car’s headlights. He pulls out his phone and thumbs up the flashlight app, searching, searching…

White LED light glints on orange hair. Kageyama’s heart slams into his throat. “Hinata! _Shouyou!_ ” He’s crossed the distance between them in an instant, is kneeling beside Hinata’s prone body.

The boy is lying in the shelter of a tall spruce, the thick underbrush wet and icy but at least not snow-covered. Looking up from here Kageyama can see the straight line up to the road; he went head-first over the guardrail and tumbled down the slope until the tree stopped him. 

He reaches out a terrified hand and feels Hinata’s face. Still warm. He slides his fingers down beneath Hinata’s coat and feels for a pulse at his throat: it’s there. Slow and sluggish, but present. In the light of the phone, he can see blood. A lot of blood.

“Mom! Call an ambulance!”

Kageyama pulls Hinata up off the frigid ground, sitting himself down in the underbrush and holding the smaller boy in his arms. The slope is too steep for him to climb back up carrying Hinata; they’re stuck here until further rescue arrives. He puts away his phone and takes Hinata’s hands in his – the pale skin is frozen, icy. He holds them, trying to share his warmth.

“Hinata. Oi. _Hi-na-ta!_ ”

The boy stirs in his arms, takes a deep breath.

“Nn?”

“You need to wake up.”

“’yama?”

“That’s right. It’s your setter, the one who _so kindly_ shares his tosses with you. Are you going to answer me? Or is it going to be no tosses?”

He feels Hinata shift again, his hands twitch against Kageyama’s. “What?” He sounds half-asleep, or half-drunk. Who knows how hard he hit his head on the way down.

“You have to talk to me,” says Kageyama. He’s scared and desperate but projects only fierceness, the steel-edged control he brings to his plays on the court. 

“Why?”

“Because _I say so_ , idiot.” It’s cold and his jeans are already soaked through with icy dampness but inside his coat he’s sweating, his heart racing. 

“’bout what?”

 _Anything_ , thinks Kageyama, squeezing Hinata’s frozen fingers. Gods, they’re so cold – he’s so cold. Kageyama pulls him closer, even as he wracks his panicked brain for a topic of conversation. “Yamaguchi’s jump float serve is looking a lot better. Don’t you think?” 

“Mmm. Jump serve… Can’t do it.” Hinata seems to only be picking up on some of his words. 

“Do you want to?”

“Want… to serve. Jump serve. My serve…” His voice fades, head tucking in against Kageyama’s chest. He had served right into the net in today’s practice game, the ball falling dead to the floor while Hinata writhed in shame. 

“Shake it off,” commands Kageyama. “Your service is getting better.”

“Might hit you.”

For an instant his mind flashes back to the summer, to Hinata’s first game with the team. To the dull pain of having a ball slammed into the back of his skull. “I survived, didn’t I? And so did you. Wasn’t that generous of me? So you’d better keep talking. You hear me? Don’t make me regret forgiving you.”

“Kageyama?”

“Yeah?”

Hinata’s voice is just a whisper, barely audible even in the silent forest. “Why’s it so cold?”

Kageyama swallows thickly. As time ticks on his hands are growing colder; Hinata’s aren’t getting any warmer. “We’ll warm up soon,” he says. “Trust me.”

“Okay.” He says it so simply, without any hesitation or doubt. Like trusting Kageyama is the easiest thing in the world for him, easy as breathing, as bleeding. 

Kageyama almost picks him up there and then to try to scale the mountainside, so emboldened by Hinata’s trust is he – and so desperate not to fail it. Then he hears more voices from the road. A moment later more people are scrambling down the incline. 

“Kageyama! Hinata!” 

It’s Coach Ukai and Daichi-sempai. They bring flashlights and a thick quilted blanket that smells like produce, doubtless from Coach’s store. 

“Sawamura, hold the flashlight.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kageyama squints at the sudden brightness as Hinata’s face and chest are illuminated. He can see now that half Hinata’s pale face is covered in blood, his hair soaked with it. Coach reaches out and runs careful hands over his head and neck. 

“Hinata?” His voice is low, serious. 

Hinata’s eyes slide open. His pupils are huge, even in the bright light from the flashlight. “Coach?”

“Do you know where you are?” Coach is opening Hinata’s coat, examining his torso for injuries. His ribs, Kageyama sees as his white tee is shucked up, are black and blue. Coach looks grim as he closes Hinata’s coat up again and wraps him in the blanket. 

“With Kageyama.”

“Do you know why?”

Hinata closes his eyes. “Volleyball?” It’s not a bad guess, but very plainly just a guess all the same. 

“Coach, how did you get here?” asks Kageyama. 

“Sawamura came and got me; he said Hinata was missing. Listen, we –” 

At that moment, the low wail of the ambulance’s siren cuts in. They all look up. 

“I’ll go get them,” says Daichi-sempai, and rises to scramble back up the steep, icy incline. 

“You’ll be okay, Hinata,” says Coach, but from where Kageyama sits he’s not sure he means it.

  
***

It takes the paramedics five minutes to assess Hinata, and a further ten to get him up the slope even with Coach and Daichi-sempai helping. Kageyama by this time is so cold that he’s lost fine motor control and can barely get himself back up the slope to the road.

Someone has to go with Hinata to the hospital, and it’s going to be him. He steps forward even as they’re loading the stretcher into the back: “I’m going.”

“Kageyama,” begins Coach.

“Hinata trusts me to be there for him. I’m going.”

“Alright. We’ll go get Hinata’s family and meet you at the hospital.”

Kageyama nods, gives his Mom a quick hug. Then he turns and clambers into the back of the ambulance. 

The paramedic in the back has already stripped off Hinata’s coat and cut away his sweater and shirt, revealing his pale, toned chest – and the litany of black-and-blue bruises covering it. She inserts an IV drip into Hinata’s arm while Kageyama watches squeamishly. When she’s done he takes Hinata’s hand. It’s still far too cold, the beds of his nails blue. She’s speaking to the prone boy in a low but authoritative tone, trying to get him to open his eyes; Hinata doesn’t reply. 

Kageyama squeezes his fingers. “Hinata. Shouyou.”

Hinata stirs without opening his eyes. “Why?” 

“Why what?”

Hinata’s pale, bloody face scrunches up, as if in deep thought. “Shouyou. Never Shouyou to you.”

“Well, why not?” he demands. “It’s your name. We’re… friends, aren’t we?” He can’t help the pause, the slight hesitation. Even after all these months of working together, of sharing the same goals and aspirations, of thinking the same thoughts and dreaming the same dreams, he still doesn’t know what Hinata thinks of him. But… “I know you trust me.”

“Un,” agrees Hinata. 

“Ask him to open his eyes,” says the paramedic quietly. 

“Oi. Open your eyes. Look at me.”

Hinata opens his eyes. His pupils are still huge and dark, the amber of his irises barely visible. The paramedic leans over and shines a light in them; Hinata tries to turn away but she holds him still. 

“It’s okay,” says Kageyama, tightening his grip on Hinata’s hand. “You’re okay.”

“Kageyama…” His tone is thin, worried. His wide eyes search the tiny space. Kageyama presses the tips of his free hand’s fingers to Hinata’s cheekbone and his eyes turn towards the setter. 

“I’m right here.”

“Kageyama?” Scared; confused.

“You were in an accident. We’re taking you to the hospital.”

“What? But –”

The ambulance pulls to a stop.

“We’re here,” says the paramedic.

  
***

They whisk Hinata away for urgent x-rays and scans to check his concussion and to search out any other injuries. Kageyama waits in the emergency department waiting area sitting on a plastic chair, foot tapping non-stop on the linoleum. As the minutes tick by he’s joined by Coach Ukai and Daichi-sempai with Hinata’s mother – pale, fretful, but still polite – then Suga-san and Tanaka-san, then Azumane-san and Noya-san. More players keep trickling in until even Tsukishima is there, tall and lanky and dead-eyed in the ED’s fluorescent lights. There are so many of them they’re asked by the staff to send some players home. The staff don’t understand the truth of it, though: they’re all family. They settle for relocating most of the team to the cafeteria with the group text active to keep them updated.

Kageyama stays. No one suggests he leave, likely because they value their lives – or at least their chances of ever being tossed to again. Suga-san does come up to him as he files by, though, and says quietly: “Perhaps you should go wash up.”

It’s only then that Kageyama realises he has Hinata’s blood coating his hands and coat. His stomach turns, bile rising. He swallows thickly. “Thanks.”

He makes a trip to the bathroom to do just that, scrubbing dried rusty blood from his skin and jacket and staring at his face in the mirror. His eyes are wide and shadowed, his face pale – although not nearly as pale as Hinata’s. He even has a thin line of blood on his cheek, where he must have touched his own skin. There’s a low moan in the bathroom – it’s only after he glances around and realizes that he’s alone that he knows it must have come from his own throat. 

He had told Hinata that they were friends. It seems pathetic, insignificant now. Friends? How can that capture what they are to each other? He’s the man who lets Hinata soar. And Hinata brings him victory in exchange, a triumph Kageyama could never achieve on his own. 

Kageyama watches his fingers as he scrubs the blood from his cheek. Remembers holding Hinata’s frigid hand, the icy limpness there so unlike Hinata’s usual boundless searing energy. “Shit!” He snaps out a kick at the wall, the mirror shaking. “ _Shit!_ ”

That’s when the tears come. Hot, choking tears. He holds the edges of the sink as they wrack him, his mind awash with all the what-ifs: What if Hinata can’t play again? What if he’s permanently injured? What if he has brain damage?

_What if he dies?_

The tears keep coming, unforgiving, relentless, as Kageyama’s thoughts spiral down further and further. He’s holding onto the sink for dear life, the smooth enamel the only thing keeping him standing. It’s not what Hinata is to him – hardly that at all. It’s what Hinata wants for himself, his larger-than-life presence, his will to fly higher than anyone ever has. He’s imprinted his dreams on all of them, but on Kageyama most of all. 

He’s too important, too precious, to lose. 

His phone vibrates in his pocket. Kageyama pulls it out and reads the text from Coach: Doctor’s coming.

Kageyama chokes back his tears and washes his face until the cold water soaks away the redness. Then he hurries out to receive the news.

  
***

“All-in-all, he’s very lucky. Definite concussion and a nasty gash to the scalp, but otherwise only bruises. His ribs took a hard knock, but no major damage.”

It’s like someone has put in a tube and drained the frantic tension out of him. Kageyama feels himself relaxing, feels relief flood in so sharply he barely hears Coach say:

“He’s an expert in bailing without hurting himself. Guess it shows.”

Hinata’s mother is crying quietly while his own mother holds her close, comforting her. 

“Can we see him?” asks Kageyama.

“We’ll need to keep him overnight at least to monitor the concussion. He’s in and out of consciousness, but I understand he has been responsive.”

Kageyama nods.

“I’ll have someone bring you to his room when he’s settled.”

Coach retires to a corner to text the news to the rest of the team; Kageyama stands, hands fisted, waiting.

  
***

The room is a small one with a window looking out over the snowy parking lot. Hinata lies in an adult bed looking tiny, looking like the elementary student he is sometimes accused of being. His hair and face have been washed and he’s dressed in blue hospital pyjamas, just barely peeking out over the top of the blanket covering him. White bandages encircle his head, doubtless protecting the stitches in his scalp. An IV line runs beneath the blanket, and a monitor stands beside it beeping quietly in time to his heartbeat.

Kageyama and his mother have gone in alone with Hinata-san; they stand back as she rushes forward to her son, calling him and stroking his still-damp hair. Hinata blinks awake, looking much younger than he is, lost in the white-sheeted bed. “Mom?”

Kageyama doesn’t catch what she says to him, but after a minute she looks back and motions the setter forward. He comes awkwardly, feeling like an intruder. But Hinata’s eyes – still dilated, but less so now – focus on him. He smiles, and Kageyama feels the remaining tension drain from his chest. “Kageyama!”

“Yo.” He stands beside the bed, his hands resting on the rails, on the opposite side to Hinata-san. “How d’you feel?”

Hinata blinks. “Super fuzzy,” he confesses. “’S hard to focus. Doc says I had a bike accident?”

“You sure did.”

“And you came and found me.” It’s not a question. 

Kageyama nods, slowly. “That’s right.”

“Just like on the court.”

“Huh?”

Hinata’s smile widens. “You always know where I am.”

Kageyama’s hands tighten on the bedside rail. “Yeah,” he says slowly, throat tight. 

“Thanks,” says Hinata. And then, softly, “Tobio.”

Kageyama feels his eyebrows climb, his heart beat harder in his chest. Who is Hinata to him that just his name is enough to send him off balance? 

But then, deep down, he already knows. Hinata is more than a friend, more than a partner. He’s his world, the sun that rises every day and brings Kageyama the victories he craves. The one person who understands him better than anyone else. The one person he can – and will – find anywhere. 

“Anytime. I’ll see you soon.” He nods to Hinata-san and slips back. Past his mother, who smiles at him, and out into the hallway to update the rest of the guys. 

Just as soon as his heart stops hammering in his chest. 

END


End file.
